Shutter
This invention relates to a shutter for use in physical vapour deposition apparatus having a chamber. The shutter, generally indicated at 5, is located in a side housing 6 of the vacuum chamber 7, whilst sputtering is taking place. Once the substrate 2 is treated, the substrate is removed from the chamber and the shutter is brought in to an operative position above a wafer pedestal or support 1. The shutter is mounted on an arm 8 using a fixing boss 10, the arm and the boss being magnetically coupled.
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A claim to priority is made to British Patent Application No. 0210660.7 filed 9th May 2002, the contents of this application being incorporated herein by in their entireties.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a shutter for use in a physical vapour deposition apparatus having a chamber.
2. Description of Related Art
It is well known in physical vapour deposition chambers, such as sputter deposition chambers, to line the walls with shielding to capture any unwanted deposition. The shielding is generally retained in place by a combination of physical fit and gravity and, since most shielding is not required to move during the process, this works perfectly well.
For a number of processes, for instance reactive sputter deposition, there is a shielding component, called the process shutter, which must be able to move. The process shutter is provided to cover the substrate support pedestal for example during the target clean-up process, which is carried out between successive substrate deposition processes. During the actual deposition process, the shutter must be located in some part of the chamber, where it will not compromise the uniformity of deposition of the substrate. In some chambers the shutter is translated in a horizontal plane (by rotary or linear action) so that it lies within an adjacent pocket or housing. In others, it is rotated into a space beneath or beside the support pedestal.
Because, during use, the shutter receives deposition, it must (in whole or in part) be easily removable, so that it may be replaced at appropriate intervals by a clean component. Another design constraint is that the shutter movement must be as rapid as possible and this generally requires that the shutter be rigidly attached to its actuating mechanism. Commonly this is achieved by bolting the two parts together.
Since, for most chambers, maintenance access is generally from above, by means of removal of the target, it is convenient if the fixing screws are located in the upper surface of the shutter. However, in this position, they generally receive a significant amount of deposited material and can be extremely difficult or impossible to remove subsequently. In addition, the sharp features associated with the screw head may cause local delamination of the deposited film, resulting in particulate contamination of the substrates processed within the chamber.
In order to overcome these limitations, fixing screws are commonly located in positions away from the primary deposition flux. However, this immediately makes the removal of the screws more difficult, because maintenance access is much less straight forward.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention consists in a shutter for use in a deposition apparatus having a chamber, the shutter including a shutter blade and a support for supporting the shutter blade during movement between an operative position and an inoperative position characterised in that the shutter blade is secured to the support magnetically.
Preferably a part of a non-magnetic blade is sandwiched between a boss and a support that are magnetically attracted one to the other and the boss may have a peripheral portion which shadows any interface between the boss and the shutter blade to prevent deposited material adhering the boss and the shutter blade together. For example, the peripheral portion may be a flange which extends above and is spaced from the shutter blade, for example in the form of an overhang. The boss is preferably ferromagnetic and the support carries one or more magnets.
Although the invention has been defined above it is to be understood it includes any inventive combination of the features set out above or in the following description.
The invention may be performed in various ways and a specific embodiment will now be described by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawing in which:
In
Once the substrate 2 is treated, it is removed from the chamber and the shutter 5 is brought into its operative position above the pedestal as shown in FIG. 2. The surface of the target is duly sputtered to clean it ready for the next substrate 2 which is introduced onto the pedestal 1, whilst the pedestal is protected from deposition material 3 by the shutter 5.
As illustrated in
Although there will be some frictional engagement between the boss 10 and the blade 5a and the boss 10 and the support arm 8, the principal means of retaining the boss 10 on the support arm 8, and hence retaining the blade 5a on the support arm 8, is magnetic. Any suitable magnetic scheme could be utilized, but that illustrated has the boss 10 been formed of ferromagnetic material (preferably ferromagnetic stainless steel) and suitably located magnets 11 (NdFeB is preferred) disposed in the annular end 8a. The magnetic field of the magnets 11 can be concentrated by a flux return cup 12, which will be of ferromagnetic material.
Other arrangements would include a ferromagnetic shutter with no fixing boss or the boss having one or more magnets oppositely sensed to those in the arm and in principle electromagnets could also be used.
It is desirable that any magnetic effect is localised hence the preferred use of a fixing boss where there is a target magnetron assembly or other magnetic fields provided for the processing of the substrate. The use of a ferromagnetic boss and a non-ferromagnetic shutter thereby minimises the possibility of magnetic peturbment.
The benefits of this arrangment are principally related to tool productivity. The shutter blade 5a can be exchanged rapidly and simply, from within the process chamber. There is no requirement to access the shutter housing. There are no screws, which may take time to fix, maybe dropped or lost, or may be welded to the blade. Also the reduced time for which the chamber is opened is significant, because the time for the vacuum to recover after maintenance is strongly tied to the time for which the chamber was open to atmosphere. Thus five minutes saved on chamber maintenance time can result in thirty minutes saved on the time to recover to base pressure in high vacuum systems such as PVD process chambers. Thus surprisingly, although there are significant productivity advantages in having a rapid and simple method and arrangement for changing the shutter blade 5a, no-one skilled in the art has previously proposed the use of magnetic engagement.
The use of the arrangement has been described in connection with physical vapour deposition processes. However, they are applicable to any desposition process in which a portion of the chamber or the chamber furniture has to be intermittently shielded.
Claims
1. A shutter for use in a deposition apparatus having a chamber, the shutter including a shutter blade, a movable support arm for supporting the shutter blade and for moving the shutter blade between an operative position and an inoperative position, characterised in that the shutter blade is secured to the movable support arm magnetically.
2. A shutter as claimed in claim 1 wherein the shutter blade is non-magnetic and is secured to the movable support arm by a ferromagnetic boss and the movable support arm carries one or more magnets.
3. A shutter as claimed in claim 2 wherein a part of the blade is sandwiched between the boss and the movable support arm.
4. A shutter as claimed in claim 2 wherein the boss includes a peripheral portion which shadows any interface between the boss and the shutter blade to prevent deposited material adhering to the boss and the shutter blade together.
5. A shutter as claimed in claim 4 wherein the peripheral portion is a flange which extends above and is spaced from the shutter blade.
6. A shutter for use in a deposition apparatus having a chamber, the shutter including a shutter blade, a support for supporting the shutter blade during movement between an operative position and an inoperative position characterized in that the shutter blade is secured to the support magnetically, wherein the shutter blade is non-magnetic and is secured by a ferromagnetic boss and the support carries one or more magnets.
7. A shutter as claimed in claim 6 wherein a part of the blade is sandwiched between the boss and the support.
8. A shutter as claimed in claim 6 wherein the boss includes a peripheral portion which shadows any interface between the boss and the shutter blade to prevent deposited material adhering to the boss and the shutter blade together.
9. A shutter as claimed in claim 8 wherein the peripheral portion is a flange which extends above and is spaced from the shutter blade.
1480564 | September 1975 | GB |
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2001-131739 | May 2001 | JP |
2002-118063 | April 2002 | JP |
Type: Grant
Filed: May 9, 2003
Date of Patent: Aug 16, 2005
Patent Publication Number: 20030209199
Assignee: Trikon Technologies Limited (Newport)
Inventors: Gordon Robert Green (Bristol), Robert Kenneth Trowell (Bristol)
Primary Examiner: Rodney G. McDonald
Attorney: Volentine Francos & Whitt, PLLC
Application Number: 10/434,190